We all come acrossed it at one time or another. 

The piece of paper is laying down in front of us, and our mind is just blank.  We stare into space hoping for some kind of inspiration, or just hope that maybe our pencil might even make a scratch…this time.  Writer’s block can last for a few hours, days, weeks, or worse-months. For those who earn a living writing-writer’s block means bad news.There are a few tips to get past this horrible “writers disease.”  I often do an exercise with the members of my poetry club just for fun.  Every now and then, they may grumble about it, but always-they thank me for it afterwards.

Some things you need for this exercise is a regular size letter envelope, slips of paper, a stopwatch, sheet of paper, and of course–a pencil.  Think of a random topic -say-seasons for instance.   Then choose a season-like..-summer.  Take the slips of paper and write different subjects about summer-(for example: sun, hot, ice cream, swimming pool, water, school vacation, children, flowers, etc).  Take these subjects and mix them up in your envelope.  Once you are finished, draw out a slip of paper without looking. 

Set your timer for 10 minutes, and begin writing ideas and sentences about your topic. Try to create a poem from your ideas.  This will get your mind thinking, and coming up with various ideas.  Before you know it-you might have a new poem in front of you! 

Save your envelop for later, so that you can use it again when writer’s block hits.  Not to mention-it’s a lot of fun to do with a group.  After 10 minutes, you can all share your poems with each other just to see what you come up with.  It’s a fun easy way to beat writer’s block. 

Try it sometime—and do it for a game with a group of people who enjoy writing.   It could be fun to see what you come up with.